Emily Jacir

Emily Jacir (Arabic: أملي جاسر) (1970) is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker based in the Bethlehem, Palestine. Emily Jacir was born in 1970, grew up in Saudi Arabia and attended high school in Italy. She graduated with an undergraduate degree in art from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas. She then received her MFA in Memphis College of Art. In 1998, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York City. She divides her time between New York City and Bethlehem. Jacir is a multidisciplinary artist whose primary interest lies in transformation, resistance and silenced historical narratives. She works in a variety of media including film, photography, installation, performance, video, writing, and sound. She draws on the artistic medium of concept art and social intervention as a framework for her pieces, in which she focuses on themes of displacement, exile, and resistance, primarily within the context of Palestinian occupation. She has exhibited throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East since 1994, holding solo exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, Ramallah, Beirut, London, and Linz. Active in the building of Ramallah's art scene since 1999, Jacir has worked with the A. M. Qattan Foundation, Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Sakakini Cultural Center. She has been involved in projects and events such as Birzeit University's Virtual Art Gallery. She also founded and curated the first International Video Festival in Ramallah in 2002. She curated a selection of shorts, Palestinian Revolution Cinema (1968–1982), which went on tour in 2007. Between 2000 and 2002 she curated several Arab film programs in NYC with Alwan for the Arts, including the first Palestinian Film Festival in 2002. She has worked as a full-time professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine since it opened in 2006 and served on its academic board from 2006 through 2012. Jacir led the first year of the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Program in Beirut (2011–2012) and created the curriculum and programming after serving on the founding year of the Curricular Committee from 2010 to 2011. She is the founding director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in her family home in Bethlehem, which serves as both a community centre and a contemporary art space.